Category: media

NBC’s new series, “30 Rock” and “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” are not what could be called ratings hits — yet, on the other hand, they’re both still on the air. “These two very different behind-the-scenes looks at network intrigue were among the most vaunted shows of the fall season and did not meet expectations, yet both survived the midseason tumbrel. Turns out cold-eyed corporations don’t always look at the bottom line to determine the fate of fledgling television shows.”

“A version of 1980s working-class England triumphed over a version of 90s upper-class England at the ninth British Independent Film Awards last night. Shane Meadows’s This Is England will not be on general release until next spring but it has already won over film festival audiences, impressing critics in London and winning a special jury prize at Rome. It added a Bifa best film award last night. It beat impressive opposition such as The Queen… The Last King of Scotland and two films which won at Cannes – the Palme d’Or winner, The Wind that Shakes the Barley, and the jury prize winner, Red Road.”

Putting together a film soundtrack is tricky business. Stick to sweeping orchestral melodies, and you sound dated by scene two. But embrace the pop music of your time, and your whole movie will be stuck forever in the year it was made. The trick to a truly timeless soundtrack may be to go retro, but not too retro. Not surprisingly, the master of the form may be that most retro of New York filmmakers, Woody Allen.

The nominations are out for the Independent Spirit Awards, honoring low-budget and independent film, with offbeat comedy Little Miss Sunshine and drug drama Half Nelson garnering five nominations each. The late Robert Altman was also nominated for his last film, A Prairie Home Companion.

“Three months after Los Angeles’ only country radio station, KZLA-FM (93.9) switched to a rhythmic pop format, leaving the nation’s largest market for country music with nowhere to tune on the radio dial, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Toby Keith and the rest of the twang gang are back on the air. But now they’re heard on the AM dial. In fact, when the country music broadcasts started recently on XSUR-AM (540) — transmitting from just across the border in Tijuana — the effect in L.A. was almost like tuning in on an old crystal set with the signal fading in and out.” On Friday, Los Angeles station KKGO-AM will go country, too.

A new documentary by a couple of young music fans serves mainly as a confirmation of what we already suspected – that the popular music industry is now little more than a corporate shell of its former self. “The men who made this movie were driven to spend a year of their lives wandering the country and talking to musicians and radio and recording-industry people because they correctly felt that something elemental has changed, that the institutions through which they fell in love with music are flailing.”

Canadian cable companies are hiking rates in an effort to recoup some of the cost associated with converting to high-definition. But some are questioning the increases, pointing out that the same companies that are asking Canadians to subsidize their tech upgrades have become increasingly uninterested in supporting Canadian-produced content.

The city of Cleveland is making a big push to interest Hollywood in using it as a film set. There has already been some success, but now, “by opening up the 84-year-old, often-empty and outdated Cleveland Convention Center to Hollywood filmmakers,” Cleveland hopes to join the small group of American cities offering not only diverse shooting location, but a Hollywood-caliber soundstage and production facility.

The sad truth of luring Hollywood to your city is that the facilities on offer are only part of the battle. More important to the major studios are the tax breaks and other financial incentives offered by various states and Canadian provinces.

That the new online video craze sparked by YouTube would have an impact on popular culture has been obvious for some time. What that impact will be is a bit harder to assess. But early indications are that what’s good for online video purveyors isn’t necessarily good for traditional broadcasters: a new study says that “43% of Britons who watch video from the internet or on a mobile device at least once a week said they watched less normal TV as a result.”